October 7, 2001
Eighteenth Sunday After Pentecost
CHRISTIAN GOSPEL: Obedience to God ~ Luke 17:5-10
These are difficult words. The first section is familiar to you. “Faith the size of a mustard seed.” In the Gospel of Matthew, the metaphor is extended. Matthew talks about how this tiny faith can grow into a huge bush and have a large impact. Here the disciples have asked, “Jesus, increase our faith.” Clearly, they are feeling like they have not qualified. They are not up to par. They don’t have everything to offer that they would like to offer. So they said, increase it a little bit. Well, in that context Jesus’ response is not, “If you only had a little bit of faith, you would be able to do great things.” They are saying, “Increase our faith.” His response is, “You want me to increase it, but you already have faith. If you rely on the faith that you have, you can do tremendous things.” To have faith, to live in faith, is to have a change in attitude. You live in the world a different way when you have faith in God and in God’s love. Jesus says to the disciples, “Live according to your faith. If you do that, you can plant a tree in the ocean and it will thrive.”
The second part of the passage is only in the Gospel of Luke. It’s a story of a slave owner that not very kind or considerate. In many parables, you can look at the different characters in the story and you can say this one is clearly intended to represent the listener. And this character is clearly meant to represent God. God is the woman who searches when she has lost one of her pennies. Or, God is the shepherd who goes out to find the one sheep who is missing when the 99 are still safe But, here Jesus is stressing not what God is like, but what our response to God is like. So he says, “You already have faith. Live according to your faith. Look at the world through the eyes of faith. Live according to the power of God, which you already have.” Then he goes on to say you are to live according to that faith, not because you are going to be thanked for it, not because there is a promise of a great reward in the sweet by-and by, but because it’s your job. God expects it of you and your only response is to do what God desires.
It is much like the situation with parents that I shared with the children. Why do you do what is right? If you do it because you are afraid of eternal punishment in hell, that is not very good motivation. If you do it because you love God and you believe that God wants you to share that love with the world, if you believe that as a child of God it is your duty, your obligation to work for peace, for justice, for mercy, for love, then you do those things out of love. There is no resentment. You know that when you do something to keep from being punished, there is always resentment. There is always fear of those red flashing lights in your rear view mirror. There is always fear of that letter from the IRS that says, “We would like to talk to you this year.” If you do something because you are afraid of getting punished, there are always negative feelings related to it. But, if you do something because it is the right and loving this to do, then you are living out the fullness of life that God intends for you.
All of this does relate to our congregation this day. Jesus says that what you are expected to do is to obey God. To live your life as God would have you live it. In good Congregational tradition, we are going to have a congregational meeting today. We have a controversy in this congregation, a disagreement. We are Congregationalists because we believe that it is inevitable that we are going to disagree. That it is good for our faith for us to come together and talk about our disagreements. It is not a bad thing to disagree in the church. It is not a bad thing to have conflict in the church. In fact, if there are not disagreements, if there is not conflict, then the church is probably not doing anything to offend anyone. If it is not doing anything to offend anyone, it’s probably not doing anything at all. It is good for us to come together to share our opinions. To listen to each other. To learn from each other. But, as I have shared with you on many occasions, we do not gather as a democracy. We gather together as a congregation, as a church, as a people of God.
So, what I ask of you today is not that there be no controversy, or no disagreement, but, instead, that as you discuss, you speak your minds clearly, you listen carefully, and that in prayer you decide what you believe God is calling for us to do at this time and in this place. That is not an easy formula. It doesn’t say that, if I will put in my head the question, “What does God want us to do?” the answer will be clear. The answer is often not very clear. As a church, we are not here to have an opinion poll. Or vote to see what a majority of the people want to do. We are here to vote about how God has been revealed to us and what we believe God wants us to do. In keeping with the Scriptures, and with good Congregational polity, I urge you to have a good conversation today. I urge all of you to say what you have to say. I urge all of you to listen carefully to what everyone else has to say. Then I urge you to let God’s Spirit speak to you so that you can discern God’s call.
May God’s Spirit be with us in the Congregational way. Amen.